WHY am I cursing so much?!?

Hi! You might probably not remember who I am!

Because it's been awhile. It's almost summer now I guess.  In Tucson, we're having what's technically known as a "late March pre-early late summer summer post-spring summer heat flash". It's terrible. It was about 90 degrees today and with some kind of "red flag warning" which I assume is wind-related  because that's basically all we get in terms of dangerous weather around here and also might actually be for tomorrow. NOAA. Who knows what they're up to over there?  Crazy bitches! I can't understand a word they say!  We're not like you folks in...basically every state east of here. No tornadoes or blizzards or freak spring floods here. We just get dust storms, heat advisories, and occasionally hail whose aftermath everyone immediately takes pictures of and posts on Facebook like it's actual weather. We also facilitate a fair number of dog fights, but I don't think NOAA considers those weather.

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not ready for summer. Since I moved to Tucson, I've only been ready for summer once, and that was in July of 2001. The month I moved here. I moved here after grad school. I packed everything into my blue Chevy Cavalier, stocked up on books-on-tape, and drove for three-and-a-half days all by myself across the country to get here on what was largely a whim. ("I don't want to live in Ohio anymore!") It's still one of my proudest achievements. It's why I was completely ready for summer. Because it would be my first real summer not in Ohio and also the first summer during which I might find myself living out of my car.

I arrived in July, and it was incredibly hot. Like, almost as hot as it was the summer I was in Cyprus. Cyprus, if you don't know, is HOT. It's so hot in the summer that they have a siesta in the afternoon, during which everyone gathers half-naked in shaded lots to scrub recently excavated pottery and drink partially-frozen, slushy apricot nectar out of boxes and gossip about their peers. And later there's ouzo and wine in a jug...

Or possibly all that was just us, and the grandmothers of Athienou are clutching their bosoms in shock right now.  ("Half-naked Americans drinking wine out of jugs and engaging in gossip in our town and under our very noses! Something terrible in Greek!") I'm just trying to describe the heat I experienced upon arriving in Tucson in July. The heat. My God. In fact I'm clutching at my bosoms right now.

(Not really. That would be weird for all of us.)

Anyway, I clearly remember walking down the street by the University of Arizona and telling someone (But WHO? And WHY?!) that I'd just moved here (I was excited! And proud! And still mostly terrified!), and - remember, it was July - they said...."WHY?" And I'm not exaggerating this time. That was the first question this stranger, whoever it was, thought to ask. 

So, after I realized what this Tucson summer thing was all about, it became a badge of courage to, not only have moved to the Sonoran Desert, but to have moved to the Sonoran Desert in July.  Ask my sister. Who has vowed never to come here in the summer again. She'd sooner die. (I think she actually said those words.) Or my parents. Who kept checking the temperature on their iphones when they were here last summer so they'd know what temperature to brag to their friends about. They're tougher than my sister, let's just say. She was all like: "105 degrees?! I'm f***in' out." My parents were more: "105 degrees is for p*******!". (They didn't really say whatever it is you think I'm insinuating with those asterisks. I can't believe you thought that, even. My parents are respectable. They send me wine.) 


Lucky for me and my psyche, tomorrow is supposed to cool down to Perfect Patio Weather: 73 degrees. Let's just overlook the "areas of blowing dust" advisory, right? And get on with the m***********f*********** mojitos.


Also I didn't wind up living out of my car.

"Late Morning Backyard Hail".
By Raphael.